Roald Dahl’s Marvellous Children’s Charity is delighted to be supported by the London Stationery Show this week as part of National Stationery Week. As a small national charity, working in the area of specialist nursing care for children and young people with complex care needs, we are committed to working alongside the NHS to fund nurses operating in, for example: the fields of epilepsy, rare diseases, sickle cell & thalassemia, neuromuscular conditions and brain injury.

But what does all of that have to do with writing and stationery? Well, let’s see shall we?

Roald Dahl’s Marvellous Children’s Charity was founded in the philanthropic spirit of Roald Dahl – a children’s author who hand-wrote his manuscripts and a prolific letter-writer for whom, it’s fair to say, writing was very important. If it were not for Roald Dahl and his writing career, this charity simply would not exist. But here we are today, supporting more than 10,000 seriously ill children in the UK every year, who are living with very serious, rare and largely under-supported conditions.

So, for the children we help, writing is extremely important. And not only Roald Dahl’s writing, which continues to financially support the charity each year, but other people’s writing too. Our ability to communicate in writing is vital to our ability to fundraise. If we can’t tell you about the difference your support makes to children like Aidan or Ilyas, then you’re not very likely to support us are you? If you didn’t know, from our writing, that our Roald Dahl children’s nurses are a lifeline to families who are facing extremely challenging circumstances, you might be inclined to make a donation to ensure that more children can benefit from their support.

And what about the Roald Dahl children’s nurses themselves? Surely they don’t do much writing? On the contrary, this is a vital part of their care of seriously ill children. Whether that is putting together an information pack for newly diagnosed children and their families, or assisting them to apply for additional support such as our Family Grants, a specialist nurse’s ability to write is a vital part of their skill set. Their notes in hospital help to communicate needs and treatments to fellow medical professionals, and their written instructions for schools in how to cope with a child’s condition are vital to ensuring that children not only receive the best possible healthcare, but also that they are fully supported outside of hospital to have access to education alongside their peers.

And how about the children themselves? We’re thrilled that the stationery being donated to Roald Dahl’s Marvellous Children’s Charity will be distributed via our network of Roald Dahl specialist children’s nurses to seriously ill children and young people in their care across the UK. Whether they choose to use this for the therapeutic process of writing down their thoughts and feelings, sending a thank you note or having some creative fun, we are thrilled to be able to provide these donations to the children in our care.

We are extremely grateful to our fellow writing enthusiasts at Explore Learning who both nominated us to be the charity partner and will be representing us at the London Stationery Show. We think they are simply marvellous.